NMS had its origins as an anesthesia billing service and continued as an anesthesia billing service for ten years. To meet its own needs, it developed an in-house billing software package along with its own in-house EDI clearinghouse service. Because of the lack of good quality and affordable anesthesia billing software on the market, the software was offered to other anesthesia practices and billing services. This anesthesia billing software, ABA Software (Anesthesia Billing Assistant), was first released in 1993. Each day, the software was worked on to improve it, make it more efficient and robust to meet the varying needs of different groups and carriers across the country. ABA Software quickly spread to customers in over 40 states.

After about 1998, it was clear that Navaro’s primary business was software and not medical billing and a few years later exited the billing side of the business to focus entirely on the software.

In 1996, the HIPAA regulations were made law, with widespread changes that would change the way healthcare worked going forward. In 2000 Microsoft introduced a beta version of its all new .Net software technology, which was going to replace older technology and be the foundation for its development going forward.

Richard Navaro, (Navaro) the CEO of NMS, the founder and day to day operations manager for the billing service, the sole software developer and primary support person for ABA Software and its EDI Clearinghouse, began a detailed review and analysis of the HIPAA regulations and the new .Net technology.

Over the next couple years, Navaro used the comprehensive HIPAA transaction data set to design a data structure that would incorporate every element allowed permitted under the HIPAA regulations, one that accommodated the direct entry of every element of data for any specialty in the industry and where the entry of this data, would permit all valid choices under HIPAA.

A study and analysis of HIPAA privacy and security regulations was used to identify all elements of data that would be considered confidential, either by HIPAA or by the practice. While HIPAA did not require it and no one else did it, Navaro designed his data structure so that all confidential data would be stored in the database as encrypted data.

Navaro also studied accounting publications and documents from the National CPA Health Care Advisors, MGMA and others to lay out the financial data elements of his design. The new design was to store every individual data element down to the last penny and individual adjustment code, all linked together with its proper relationships such that every potential financial transactions could be fully stored in the data down to the smallest detail and a full linkage of data could be reviewed from the highest level to the smallest level.

So, for example, a bank deposit could be viewed and you could click on that deposit and see a list of every payment in that deposit. A click on each payment would show everything about that payment, including a listing of every charge where that payment was applied. A clicking on any one charge would show each service line in that charge. A click on the service line charge would show the component elements of the service line charge and how each payment was allocated to that service line including a detailed listing of every adjustment, the adjustment code and amount of each adjustment.

In addition to the above detail, the data design needed to track who was responsible for each data element, whether it was insurance responsibility, patient responsibility or practice responsibility.

All of these data elements were tied together from the highest level (deposit) to the lowest level, so while transactions could be grouped by deposit, they could also be grouped by any other type of entity relationship, such as practice, provider, facility, department, etc.

The data structure also needed to accommodate the full range of potential transactions encountered by a medical practice, including not only payments, but refunds, reversals, bounced payments, fees, interest as well as allow for the transactions to be closed to change, while still allowing any type transaction to occur.

After the data structure was largely in place, Navaro completed updating his software skills in .Net technology, and became a charter member of software developers and engineers to become certified by Microsoft as software architects and developers in the new .Net technology.

In 2002, Navaro hired an elite group of .Net certified software engineers and began what would become an intensive 5 year process of designing and building an all new software application. This software package was built from the ground up around the HIPAA regulations using the latest .Net technology and incorporating all the lessons learned while building and supporting ABA Software and clearinghouse during the prior 10 years. From this time forward, all future development efforts were towards improving what has become ProSourceMD.

All the software capabilities envisioned in the data structure design came to fruition in the software. Data drill down functionality, like drilling down from a deposit to individual service line payments and adjustments, exist throughout the software today, with very strong relationships for all data elements. The financial detail tracks everything to the finest detail and maintains accurate balancing across all levels, both horizontally and vertically. An endless number of reports can be created with flexibility as to what data to display as well as flexibility for grouping, sorting and filtering. The years spent as a clearinghouse translated into each program having the same capabilities as most clearinghouses built into each program. EDI 837 transactions are automatically created to carrier requirements and at the press of a button, are automatically uploaded to clearinghouses or direct to carriers. Because the program is built around the HIPAA requirements, and pre-validated, there are seldom any validation errors. Reports and 835 payment files are automatically downloaded and 999 and 277 reports are automatically translated to user friendly reports. Claims move through the system in an automated and logical order. Extensive effort has been invested to eliminate every unnecessary keystroke, and to automate everything that can be automated. The program comes pre-loaded with over 35 tables of up to date data, like the National zip code database. Enter a zip code and it will fill out the city, state, county, country. A number of our data sets are custom and proprietary, built over the years to make our customer’s job easier and help eliminate errors. Like a name gender database created from over a million paid claims that predicts the right gender based on the name. The full list of innovative features is too extensive to list here.

In 2007, the first ABA customer switched to using the new application that was to become ProSourceMD. Eventually all ABA Software customers migrated to the new software and ABA Software and its clearinghouse were taken off the market.

NMS soon became the first Practice Management Software Vendor in the industry to become a Microsoft Gold Certified Partner in .Net application development. The application which has come to be known as ProSourceMD became the first Practice Management Software in the industry to achieve the Certified for Vista designation by Microsoft, Microsoft’s first .Net application certification.

During the long development process, NMS created numerous innovative features that it incorporated into its software. It also created new technology that allows it to do things no other software can do. In 2010, Navaro received a U.S. Patent for technology developed for what is now ProSourceMD.

From 2007, to today, Navaro and his skilled development team continue to innovate, improve and expand the capabilities of the software and intend to do so going into the future.

We put a halt to marketing in 2007, because we didn’t want to sell the software until we felt it was sufficiently debugged. Now at the start of 2016, we feel the software is now ready for widespread use. We have our customers to thank for our great software. They have provided us with many great new ideas and helped us find areas that could use improvement. Many of our software customers have been loyal customer for over 10 years, some over 20 years, starting with ABA Software.

After 8 years of debugging, tweaks and improvements, the software works so well now, several days can go by without any software emails or phone calls from customers.

With all that has been said about the software, many of our customers will tell you the reason they stay with us year after year is because of the quality support they receive. Each customer is a big fish in a little pond. We are like the IT department for each customer, if they need something, we respond and over the years, they know they can trust us to give them the support they need.

With its well-designed foundation, its deep integration with HIPAA regulations, its commitment to security through encryption and its long history of innovation, and now with its solid track record and stability we believe ProSourceMD may be the best Practice Management Software in the industry and worthy of the tag line “Practice Management Software for the next generation”.

Whether your practice has 1 provider or 100, we invite you to join our family of satisfied customers.